TRUTH VERSUS REALITY, PART II

Remember my blog post a while back wherein I showed how much bullshit the Tim Todd Ministries could pack into a 6-page comic extolling evangelical Christian virtues? Well, I was just scratching the surface. Let's analyze another comic or two, shall we?

And be sure to read the original first, if you haven't.
Follow the yellow-brick hyperlink: http://mrbadaxe.blogspot.com/2006/03/truth-versus-reality-theres-something.html

COMIC TITLE: "Bibles not Bullets"
ISSUE: School Violence/School Prayer
SUMMARY OF THE COMIC:
Tommy is facing down a student with a gun, trying to calm him down, while the voices in the student's head are telling him to shoot. The student is subdued by a SWAT team, and Tommy is safe. Mr. Witski, a teacher, calls Tommy's actions foolish and dangerous, but the principal praises his boldness. The next day, Tommy is telling other students about his new school bible-study group when Mr. Witski interrupts him and gives his disapproval. Tommy makes the argument that "now instead of bibles, we have bullets!" Mr. Witski continues to hound Tommy, eventually taking his complaint to the principal. Unbeknownst to Mr. Witski, the principal has already approved their action, and the bible-study group continues as planned. At the first meeting, a student asks, what if Mr. Witski sues us? Tommy informs them that there's a number they can call for a lawyer who will take their case free of charge, but then adds that their enemy isn't Mr. Witski. "You took your best shot, Satan! Now the youth of America are fighting back! With god's help, we are legally smuggling bibles into public schools to stop the violence!"

ANALYSIS:
On the first page of this comic, we see the student with the gun. What really stood out was that the student in question is using what appears to be a hunting rifle. Now, don't get me wrong: I do not condone school shooting. I do not support school shooting. I have never handled a loaded gun (once I got the opportunity to hold an unloaded M-16). But I know this much: IF you plan on shooting people in a school...you should bring something that can be CONCEALED better.

A hunting rifle is not only nearly impossible to hide (school uniforms video scene in Bowling for Columbine notwithstanding), it's not easy to shoot multiple students with, especially if you have to reload after every shot. I personally would have used Derringers. They may only be able to carry two bullets, but I bet you that I could hide three of them in each shoe, one in each of the rear pants pockets, three or four in the front pockets, a few in the knee pockets if I was wearing cargo pants, and one in each of the dozen or so pockets in my ski jacket (if I decided to shoot up the school in the winter). While you're firing two shots from one, you can be reaching for the next. Now you're talking armed and dangerous.

Now back to the message behind the comic. This can actually probably be split into two points: One, If there is prayer in schools, there will be no violence. Two, the inverse of the first point, If there is no prayer in the schools, there WILL be violence.

Point number one might be true. My high school, Chelmsford High School in Chelmsford, Massachusetts, had the Mustard Seeds Christian Club. I have no idea if it still exists now. Their picture wasn't in the yearbook in 2004, the year I graduated, but they could have just missed the cutoff for yearbook pictures. My brother, who is a senior there, says he's never heard of them, which makes me believe they're gone. While I was a student at CHS, there were no school shootings there. But I can't attribute that to a high membership in the Christian club; according to their yearbook pictures in previous years, there were maybe six members at any one time out of a student body of about 1500. Ultimately, all we've found is a correlation, not a case of cause and effect.

But that no prayer in the schools CAUSES violence? This is absurd. Violence in schools is caused my many things, some we'll never know, but lack of prayer isn't one of them. No student ever shot another because we just wouldn't say the Our Father every morning. As far as I can tell, most school violence revolves around social acceptance or lack thereof.

And I thought that when people advocated "prayer in schools," I always thought they were talking about mandatory prayer as the school day started, say, just after the Pledge of Allegiance. (That became a schoolwide event after 9/11 at the insistence of our principal.) I don't advocate that because it's not fair to the Jewish and Atheist students, of which there were many. But if the right to form a club like this is all they want, fine, they can have it. I wouldn't have gone, but I'm not stopping you from meeting.

But it was bad enough having to think of something to fill the space where "under god" would have been in the Pledge of Allegiance, so having to think of some way to occupy my time while the student body recites a Hail Mary would have been even more annoying. And if someone saw me sitting there silently, I'd suddenly have several new friends sitting with me at lunch. Friends that tell me, "You know, Jesus died for your sins..." and I'd be forced to pull out this great line paraphrased from Jules Feiffer: "Well, it would make his death meaningless if I didn't commit them." And they'd begin bombarding me with bible quotes. I wouldn't be listening. I'd actually be thinking of shooting up the school, so that these Jesus fanboys would leave me alone so I could eat my government-issued reheated chicken parmesan sandwich in peace. (Those sandwiches were real good. Not great, but about the best a public school cafeteria could get.)

And that's it for that comic. More coming!